


a stern and stubborn rock

by lesbianjackrackham



Series: lungs [4]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, everyone is a fucking disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-04-26 08:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14398683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianjackrackham/pseuds/lesbianjackrackham
Summary: “Why hello there, Dear Listeners, this is Officer Doug Eiffel ready to rock and roll you on the 45. If we have any extraterrestrials listening in, just give us a call and we’ll put you on the air.”(a Doug Eiffel joins SI-5 AU)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We're in space!
> 
> A couple things to note:
> 
> -If anyone is following the timeline, the previous Hephaestus communications officer caught that the transmissions weren't coming from Earth much earlier than Eiffel did in the original timeline. Some version of Gas Me Twice happened, but Minkowski still trusted Command enough to tell Cutter about the transmissions. Which is why SI-5 is there a full year earlier.
> 
> As is one Isabel Lovelace, who arrived just after the Urania left Earth.
> 
> -I've kept the relationship tags the same, but for the most part, this part of the story will be more plot driven and gen. This may change.
> 
> In the words of our friend Doug Eiffel: Welcome, to Wolf 359

There are a lot of buttons in this room. And switches. And dials.

It is a Comms Room, after all.

The room is also littered with papers, pinned haphazardly to the desk and walls so they don’t float away, all scribbled with a shorthand that must have belonged to the Hephaestus Station’s previous communications officer, but based on what Minkowski said, they’d died nearly a month earlier.

Eiffel hadn’t been part of the welcoming party, and he hadn’t been listening too closely, just waiting with Maxwell for their cue to head out and explore slash take over the station while Kepler and Jacobi schmoozed and threatened Minkowski and another woman named Lovelace who wasn’t in their briefing packets. Kepler hadn’t seemed entirely shocked to see her, but he’s also just that good of an actor.

Minkowski and Lovelace seemed pretty surprised to see them, but what had they expected would happen after calling Cutter to tell him about music loving aliens? What, like Goddard Futuristics was going to let _them_ mess around with the biggest discovery in history?

Eiffel pulls himself beneath the comms desk (after two months in space he’s decided he still doesn’t love the whole “no gravity” thing, mainly because his hair is trapped in a bun as long as he wants to see what’s in front of him,) and starts unlatching the main panel. Almost immediately, a short noise chirps overhead.

“W-what are you doing?”

“Just playing ‘name that tune’ with our extraterrestrial friends,” he calls, sliding back out. “You must be the Hephaestus’— wow, that word is really awkward to say with a possessive— the station’s Senses unit.”

“My name is Hera,” the voice says stiffly, and Eiffel quickly finds the room’s camera and waves.

“Lovely to meet you, Hera. I’m Very Special Operative Doug Eiffel, at your service.”

“You’re with Goddard?”

“Yep—and I’m glad you’re here. I can’t make sense of any of these notes. When was the last time you got a singing telegram?”

“I’m… not sure. We stopped checking after…”

“Ah, yeah. Your communications officer.”

“Their name was Officer Jess Vargas,” Hera says curtly.

“I’m sorry about that. You two were close? How are you doing?”

“I— me?”

“Yeah. Your friend died and there was nothing you could do to help them. You must be having a rough time of it.”

“I-I’m… I... hold on, there’s— how many of there are you?” Hera beeps away and leaves him alone in the room. Ah, Maxwell must have made it to the bridge. Hopefully she can do something about the flickering lights.

He goes back to poking at the connections beneath the main communication station. Vargas kept this place up pretty clean, and there’s barely any degradation on the wires. Which makes it all the more easy for Eiffel to do his job. He pulls out the small relay from the pocket of his jumpsuit and quickly hooks it up to the part that processes incoming and outgoing communications. Then he opens all channels, and hits record.

Kepler likes to play omnipresent god, and now he’ll know everything happening on the Hephaestus. And once Maxwell does her job, they’ll be able to listen in without anyone knowing.

Eiffel quickly bolts up the panel and starts flipping through the notes again. He’s pretty sure standard procedure is to record audio logs, but Vargas seemed to have completely disregarded that, based on the piles of paper around the room. Even worse is the handwriting, tight cursive loops of a language he can’t quite make out, possibly some pidgin mix of English and Spanish.

It shouldn’t make too much of a difference, anyway. Prevailing theory is that Vargas happened to be in the right place at the right time, not that they were some kind of alien communicating genius.

That’s his title to earn.

Eiffel presses the Deep Space Transmission button and takes a deep breath.

“Why hello there, Dear Listeners, this is Officer Doug Eiffel ready to rock and roll you on the 45. If we have any extraterrestrials listening in, just give us a call and we’ll put you on the air.” No response. “Hello?” Nothing. Not even static.

Not that he expected anything, but it would have been cool.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert on this stuff?” Eiffel smiles at the camera.

“Darling, I’m an expert at a whole lot of things, but I don’t think anyone’s an expert at E.T. phone home quite yet. Your friend may have made first contact, but we’re going to work on an answer. You and me—how does that sound?”

Hera doesn’t say anything else, but he knows she’s still listening. It’s only fair—he is too.

Eiffel taps the deep space broadcast button again.

“Seriously—if anyone’s out there—we’re here. And we’re listening.”

\---

He runs into two very angry women on his way back to the Urania, and neither of them are Maxwell. What’s most interesting is that they seem to be angry at each other.

“Hi!” He says breezily, extending a hand. “I’m Eiffel. Doug. Doug Eiffel. You’re Minkowski and Lovelace, right?”

“Jeez, how many are there are you?” Lovelace mutters, and Eiffel laughs.

“You know, Hera asked me the same thing.” Minkowski glares at him.

“And what part of my station were you fucking around with?”

“Yikes, language, Lieutenant,” he tuts, waving a finger. “And from what I heard, it’s not really your station anymore, is it?” And it’s hard to be menacing while floating a few feet above the part of the station you’ve designated as _the ground_ , but somehow Minkowski manages it, lips curled into a snarl.

“What. Part. Of. My. Station.”

“Whoa, all right,” Eiffel laughs a little nervously, raising his eyebrows. “As the communications officer, I was just checking out the communications room. Seeing if we could find ALF and get on out of your way. Zero G does nothing for my hair, you know?”

She doesn’t know, apparently, and just shoots him another murderous look before pushing off the wall and floating past him.

“Okay! Talk later!” He calls after her, and then turns back to Lovelace, who’s studying him.

“...Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Doug,” says Eiffel.

“You don’t... seem like the other two.”

“I’ll take that as a complement. And wait until you meet Maxwell. She’s not like anyone else.” Lovelace reaches for wall to propel herself forward, but Eiffel puts out a hand to stop her. “Hey, I get it. You and Oscar the Grouch are mad you don’t get to go home yet.”

“That’s putting it nicely.”

“Look, you want some advice?”

“No.” Eiffel laughs again and leans back so he’s not in her space, but Lovelace doesn’t move away quite yet.

“Place nice with the Colonel. He and Jacobi are pretty trigger happy, but they’re the best at getting the job done, no matter what the job is. And odds are there are fifty different parameters for ninety different scenarios so— ”

“So?”

“So how about we make history, and you give Goddard a reason to let you go home?”

Lovelace isn’t as expressive as Minkowski, but there’s a small fire brewing underneath her cool demeanor. His eyes flick to the detonation device on her arm and then he watches her purse her lips like she means to say something, some pithy comment, but she doesn’t, just pushes away from the wall to follow after Minkowski.

They’re both headed towards the observation deck where Minkowski said the crazy scientist guy is locked up (Selberg? Hilbert? Shit, he should look at his briefing packets.) Apparently they don’t hate the guy enough to keep from consulting him on their arrival.

It’ll make for interesting radio, at any rate.

\---

The Urania is a cool fucking ship, even though getting up to the Hephaestus was a two-month road trip he has no desire to repeat. Forty-six trillion miles traveled in sixty-four days is a miracle of science, but if he can figure out instantaneous communication, then surely Young’s team can make a faster spaceship?

(And he knows that it’s Young’s ship because Colonel Kepler spent the entire two months gloating about how he took Rachel Young’s ship, and _yes sir, that’s incredible, wow, great job, sir._ )

Jacobi’s already in the main space they’ve designated for team meetings (and meals and other things that involve all four of them—the ship isn’t that big,) scrolling through his tablet and hovering just above the couch. He’d shaved his head down before the mission, and his hair is only just starting to fill out, less than an inch of hair poking out from around his ears.

Fun fact: you can’t get a haircut in space because all of the little hairs would fuck up all of the equipment.

Another fun fact: no one liked Eiffel’s Flowbee suggestion.

He glides across the room to Jacobi, grabbing a handlebar near the floor and pulling himself into a seated position. Jacobi glances over at him and then lets go of his tablet, which is attached to a tether so it doesn’t float too far away from him.

“Hey,” says Jacobi, and Eiffel realizes that this may be the first time they’ve been alone in two months. Not that it makes any kind of a difference. Maxwell and Kepler could come in at any moment. They will come in, because they’re all gathering for a debrief. This is not the time for— to think about— for any of that.

They left Earth in September, after ten days of extreme ‘how to survive in space’ training (that Kepler had been secretly been training them on for months, because of course he was.) And before that there wasn’t time to, well, _debrief_. About that night, with three of them. About afterwards, with Kepler.

About what it might have meant, could have meant, for them.

He has no idea if Jacobi knows about him and Kepler. He has no idea is Jacobi cares.

But now they’re in space, and even Kepler is hands off (with Jacobi, not Eiffel, because he hasn’t, with him, not that Eiffel would have wanted— _Stop it, stop it.)_

Nothing is allowed during a mission. Everyone is a professional on missions, even if missions take an indeterminate amount of time and they’re in outer space.

Which means Eiffel shouldn’t be thinking about any of… that. Right now. Or at all. While they’re in space.

For an indeterminate amount of time.

His mouth is suddenly very dry.

“How did your intro go?” Eiffel asks, clearing his throat.

“Fine. Lots of threats and witty banter. Kepler gave them some scotch.” Eiffel laughs.

“I still can’t believe he brought $1,000 booze into space. Did he—”

“Their very first whiskey speech. And I managed to keep a straight face.”

“We’re so proud,” he says, wiping away a fake tear. Maxwell pulls herself into the room and floats over to them. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she says. “You totally flustered Hera, by the way.” Eiffel smirks.

“She’s a real sweetheart.”

“Were you flirting with the Senses unit?” Jacobi asks and makes a complicated face.

“Just taking a page out of Kepler’s handbook.”

“...Touché.”

“If we’re ready,” says Kepler, and somehow even on a spaceship he still manages to appear out of nowhere. They all settle against the couch, belt themselves, and pull out their tablets while Kepler continues to hover in front of them. After a second, there’s a new file on their screen with Lovelace’s photo. “Isabel Lovelace. Captain of the last Hephaestus mission, a—”

“So she was actually a surprise?” Maxwell interrupts, and Kepler shoots her an exasperated look.

“I assumed she was floating out here somewhere, but I didn’t know she had made it to the Hephaestus. The bomb in her shuttle, however, is new information. Jacobi?”

“On it. Though I wouldn’t put it past her to blow it up while I’m inside of it.”

“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen. Eiffel, you planted the rerouter?”

“Radio ‘ _oh no, can we trust them?_ ’ is ready to go. Do you want to listen in?” Kepler shakes his head.

“They’re not making any concrete plans tonight. Keep it monitored and let us know if there’s anything... interesting.”

“Roger.” It should be hard for Kepler to get himself into a more formal stance while floating in front of them, but he does. It’s like zero g has no power over him. His hair never manages to look stupid—it wouldn’t dare.

“The mission hasn’t changed. Finding the source of the transmissions and making contact is the number one priority, and we’re here for as long as that takes—longer if there’s more to be done.”

He runs them through shift schedules and individual jobs, including personalized assignments towards what Eiffel’s calling ‘Psychological Warfare’ on the Hephaestus crew (Kepler just called it ‘Crew Assessment’ which isn’t nearly as fun.) Then they’re dismissed for dinner.

Maxwell takes hers to-go, muttering something about checking on Hera’s code. Kepler lets her, because there are only so many team dinners you can have for two months straight without wanting to kill each other. Besides, it’s not like Kepler spent the afternoon slaving over the stove.

Freeze-dried meatloaf just doesn’t have the same bonding effect.

\---

“Here’s my question,” says Eiffel, later after Maxwell’s joined them in their room. There were only three ‘bedrooms’ set up in the ship, and a second bed had been retrofitted to one of them, but the first night in space Maxwell had barged into “the boy’s room” with her mattress and a roll of duct tape.

Even Goddard Futuristics hadn't managed to improve duct tape, though he’s sure they’ve tried.

Most nights they’re on separate shifts and ended up sharing a room with whomever was on the same rotation, so rather than designating one bed per person everyone grabs whatever’s available. When all three of them are off, they duct taped the third sleeper to the third bed, already taped to the wall. It’s surprisingly comfortable.

“Do we actually need them around? Not that I’m suggesting… anything. But we have one mad scientist, one human bomb, and well, Minkowski’s just mad we took her station.”

“And the secret experiment stuff,”

“Well, that’s not our fault.”

“Kepler has a plan for them, otherwise he would’ve neutralized them already.”

“Well, if one of them gets to talk to an alien before me I’m going to be so mad.”

“ _Neerrrrrrd_ ,” says Jacobi, and he and Maxwell both elbow him.

“You know what I’m thinking about now?” Says Eiffel, after a minute of silence.

“What?”

“Would we have any idea if Goddard was secretly experimenting on us?”

“No.”

“No.”

“That’s comforting.” Eiffel stretches, or he does his best approximation of a stretch because once you’re duct taped to the wall, you can’t move much. There’s never any pure darkness in the room, not with the red light of the star echoing throughout the station or the emergency lights lining the room. But he’s been tired enough each facsimile of night, each off rotation, that it hasn’t seemed to make a difference. Tonight is no different.

It’s exhausting, what they do.

“Well,” he says, yawning, “this is going to be interesting.”


	2. Chapter 2

“So, Officer Eiffel,” says Kepler folding his hands across his lap. “Where are the aliens?”

“That’s a great question, sir,” Eiffel says, in a pathetic bid for time, because honestly, where the fuck are the aliens? After three weeks he’s willing to consider that the Hephaestus crew fucked up and there were no aliens to begin with, just some Earth signals bouncing off of random moons and some desperate play by Hilbert to seize power. He’s gotten nothing. No calls, no postcards from beyond, no signs of extraterrestrial life.

At this point he’s willing to fake some X-Files, little green men bullshit to appease Kepler because other than the lack of alien life, Eiffel likes space. He likes Hera, and teasing Maxwell about how much Hera likes him, and turning somersaults in zero gravity, and he even likes the weird, put upon, frighteningly cheery Cutter impression that Kepler’s doing. Except when it’s directed at him.

It’s a really good impression.

It would have been nice to know, while he was working on the pulse beacon relay system back on Earth, that maybe he should be focusing some of his time on a way to better scan space for alien communications, but that would have been too easy. No reason Kepler should have given him a head start.

So he makes up some bullshit about the Fermi Paradox and how lucky they were to get contacted in the first place, and maybe Maxwell can program a way for Hera to run the scanner on background power so he doesn’t have to sit there flipping dials and can instead use his not so shabby radio skills to think of other ways to search, and it’s enough for Kepler to dismiss him, even though he knows Maxwell is going to murder him later for the suggestion.

Hera… doesn’t really have any background power to spare, even with the improvements Maxwell’s made. Hilbert really did a number on her.

(And really, the only thing keeping Eiffel from joining the “let’s kill Hilbert” team that Lovelace is leading is that the guy is so much fun to provoke that it’d be a waste of entertainment. And there’s not a lot of entertainment on the Hephaestus.

Home Alone 2? Cutter is a sick man.)

Back at the Comms room is another five hours of nothing, just scanning through the different channels at different intervals (because something has to work, eventually,) and trying to get through Vargas’ notes to digitize them into some digestible format. Hera doesn’t have a scanner with SEO, which could have made this process easier, and both of them refuse to use her optical cameras (it would involve Eiffel holding up each piece of paper while Hera attempts to read it, which would be a waste of both of their times.) But damn it Jim, he’s an engineer, not an anthropologist.

Or like, a third grade teacher, based off Vargas’ doodles and mostly incomprehensible handwriting.

It’s fucking tedious, and honestly, he’s just as frustrated as Kepler is. Rotation after rotation, circling the star and not really getting… hold up.

“Hera...” Eiffel says slowly, working through the idea, “what was the orbital position for each of the transmissions? Did anyone record that?”

“The orbital… Oh! You want to—”

“Yeah, and then if we backdate them we—”

“We’ll be able to see if there’s a pattern, or—”

“Even a direction. Yes!” Eiffel fist pumps and the motion sends him upwards like Superman, which he has to admit is half of the reason he did it. “It’s like playing with the TV antenna except instead of trying to watch _The Jetsons_ we are living in _The Jetsons_. Maybe there’s like, some perfect planet out there bouncing the signal around and we’re just not in the right position. Hera, where are those logs?”

“I think Lieutenant Minkowski has them. Hilbert was tracking the star charts for… a-after…”

“Hey, Hera,” he says, patting the console. “It’s okay. Do you know where Minkowski is?”

“Uh…” She trails off, and then goes silent. Eiffel squints up at her camera.

“Hera?”

“I don’t, a-actually.”

“Really? Where is she assigned today?”

“This is her off-rotation, so I’d assume she’d be in her bunk, but…”

“She’s gone for a wander.” He drums his fingers against the console, not trying to hide his frown. “It’s alright. I’ll find her.”

\---

He doesn’t bother checking Minkowski’s room, just heads to the Urania. He expects her to be in the server room, or maybe fussing around in the engines or navigation, but when he goes to his quarters first to drop his gear he finds her rooting around in one of his storage bins, muttering to herself. For a moment he just watches her from the doorway as she carefully sorts through the box, making sure none of the contents float away.

“Find anything interesting?”

“Oh!” Minkowski whips around, almost losing her grip on the box, and when she’s facing him he sees that she’s clutching a small piece of paper in her hands. A piece of paper that Eiffel carefully folded and hid in the lining of the box.

Any lighthearted teasing he had planned rushes out of him in a single breath as he grips the bar above the door tightly, blocking her exit.

“Put that down,” he says, stone-faced, and Minkowski blanches.

“I—”

“Put. It. Down.” To her credit, Minkowski bends back down and tucks the paper under his spare uniform—not where she found it, but secure enough that it won’t float away. Eiffel lets out a short breath and relaxes his grip slightly. He doesn’t move from the door.

“I didn’t—”

“What? What didn’t you? You went snooping through my literal dirty laundry, and you didn’t expect to find anything personal? Were you looking for a diary? _Dear Journal, you’ll never believe what the aliens didn’t do today?_ Or did you think I kept the ‘super evil plans’ under my underwear?”

“I don’t know.” Eiffel closes his eyes and sighs.

“Christ, Minkowski. Did I seem like the easiest mark or were you going into everyone’s stuff?” At Minkowski's silence, he runs a hand through his hair. “Actually, don’t tell me. I don’t care. You should just be glad Kepler didn’t catch you in here. Where’s Lovelace hiding?”

“She’s not here. I came alone.”

“You know what the worst part is? I actually believe you. And I was just with Hera, who tried to cover for you, but she clearly didn’t know what was going on because she was barely able to. You came here without anyone watching your back, and I know you’re not stupid, or suicidal, so… come on. Be better than this.”

“Did you... just criticize my _spying_?”

“I’m criticizing your lack of teamwork.” He pushes away from the door and floats towards her, landing just on the other side of the box. As he takes a mental inventory, gently poking through the contents, Minkowski continues to hover there, watching him.

“About the photo—”

“I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about it,” he says, not looking up at her.

“I—”

“I think it’s only fair.” He shuts the box a little too aggressively and smiles with too many teeth. “A secret for a secret?”

“Sure,” says Minkowski, and just before she pushes off the wall to leave, she pauses, looking back at him. “Is she your—”

“ _Goodnight_ , Minkowski,” he says, as flatly as he can manage. She waits another moment, like maybe he’ll say something else, and he can’t tell if she’s waiting for, what, a _bonding_ moment, or something, but he just stares her down and finally, finally, she leaves.

He lets out a breath and then, after he’s sure she’s not waiting around the corner, he opens the box again and carefully pulls out the piece of paper. He’s technically not supposed to have anything flammable in space, lest he blow everyone up (that’s Jacobi’s job,) but there wasn’t any time to make a copy or find a way to make it fireproof. And, hell, those stupid survival guides Kepler made them read are made with real paper, so he should be allowed to have this one thing. This one picture.

He doesn’t unfold it or look at it because it’s not that kind of night, and he doesn’t want to see what Minkowski might have seen, what it might have done to the way she looks at him. He needs to focus. He need to be Officer Eiffel, not— the guy in the photo.

He doesn’t unfold it but he holds it for a little longer than he should, running his fingers along the smooth paper and careful not to go over the creases. He doesn’t want it to tear. It’s not even a real photograph, just a piece of printer paper, and the photo isn’t great quality but it’s all that he has.

Eiffel tucks it back in the side of the box, not bothering to find a new hiding place. Minkowski won’t be back.

\---

He runs into Jacobi back in the main living space, where the man is eyeing the coffee container suspiciously. Eiffel not so subtly moves it out of sight. They’re both finally off rotation, and as tempting as the coffee is, they should really get some sleep.

“Alana and I caught Lovelace trying to break into Kepler’s files,” Jacobi yawns, snagging a tube of what Eiffel’s just been calling ‘super nasty gogurt.’

“I caught Minkowski in my underwear drawer,” says Eiffel. If he tucks his feet against the bottom of the counter, he can lean against the wall without floating away. He never thought he’d miss prison food, but at least in prison the food didn’t originate in a lab. The vegetables lived in dirt, at one time. The protein used to be alive.

“Gross. She find anything?”

“Just my porn. You?”

“Nah, we did a whole bit about helping her break in to chase her off the scent. She seemed to believe us, but ‘lana’s beefing up the security anyway.”

“I can’t believe they both tried to snoop on the same day—and didn’t coordinate with each other. At all.” He yawns and tries stretching, but almost dislodges himself from the kitchenette. “Didn’t you honestly think this job would be harder?”

“Have you found any aliens yet?”

“Fuck off.”

“But seriously,” says Jacobi, “what’s their deal?” Eiffel groans.

“Oh great, first from Kepler and now from you?”

“Jeez, don’t get you panties in a twist.”

“I don’t know where the fucking aliens are!” He says, banging his head against the wall. “This Vargas person bumped into them by accident and now I’m in charge of creating a fucking miracle.”

“Maybe not,” Jacobi muses. “Have you dissected their notes yet?”

“Barely. It’s mostly scribbles.”

“Well, what did they do that you’re not doing?”

“What did they… Huh. Actually let me— let me ask Hera.” He pulls out his tablet and Jacobi rolls his eyes.

“Okay, go running off to your—”

“Hey darling,” says Eiffel, putting his hand over Jacobi’s mouth. “Question for you.”

“Yes, Officer Eiffel?”

“ _Yes, Officer Eiffel_?” Jacobi mimics under Eiffel’s palm, fanning himself, and Eiffel pushes him across the room. Jacobi yelps.

“We’re doing all of the calculations right, right? Trying to recreate the conditions for contact? But is there anything, I don’t know, a rain dance, a lucky idol I should be kissing—something Vargas did that I’m not doing?”

Silence on the other end of the line for a second, and then—

“The messages,” she says slowly.

“Messages?”

“Jess—Officer Vargas used to transmit their audio logs—when they made them, at least—into deep space.”

“Why?”

“I never made the connection,” says Hera almost to herself. “But they said it was— in case someone was listening.”

“Well,” says Eiffel. “Clearly someone was. Thanks, sweetheart. Let’s try that out tomorrow, okay? And, uh, I was never able to get those logs from Minkowski, so can you check in with her? Right now I’ve got a bed calling my name.”

“Good night, Eiffel.” He folds up his tablet and Jacobi floats back over to him, making a face.

“What?”

“The pet names. Do you think it’s kind…”

“What? Jacobi, are you jealous?”

And just like that they’ve stepped over a line, as Jacobi’s cheeks flush and he hovers there for a second, not moving, and Doug’s lips are suddenly very dry. That’s why he licks them, no other motivation for flicking his tongue out, moistening his lips enough that Jacobi looks right at them when he mouths _sweetheart_.

Neither of them say anything. Neither of them move. They’re in reach of each other, and he has no idea what it means, that they could get swept up in this, whatever this is, this quickly. It’s the same heady rush of power at Jacobi’s wide eyes and the way he’s letting himself drift closer to Eiffel, like he’s caught in a current. And at any moment they’ll bump into each other, which they could easily explain off. Things happen, in zero gravity.

Eiffel’s not really tired anymore.

Jacobi falls into his orbit with an arm around Eiffel’s waist, a soft clash of bodies, and even though their jumpsuits Eiffel can feel the heat of him. He’s greedy for it, in the cold depths of space, for this human to human contact, for Jacobi’s hand holding tight to the bunched up fabric on his back and the other hand sneaking up to his collar to pull him down and—

“Wait,” says Eiffel, barely a huff of air against Jacobi’s ear. Jacobi’s lips are on his neck and he can barely think. “Not…”

“Bunk?”

“Maxwell will murder us.”

“Worth it.”

“Wait,” he says again, and he isn’t touching Jacobi because if he does he won’t be able to stop. “We’re… mission regulations.”

“I thought you didn’t care about that kind of stuff anymore,” says Jacobi, and Eiffel pulls his head back.

“What kind of stuff? Rules?”

“Kepler’s rules.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What rules?” Jacobi shrugs and lets go of Eiffel’s collar, runs the hand down his chest.

“Well, maybe not rules, but...” Jacobi wiggles his eyebrows and Eiffel frowns.

“Just because Kepler and I aren’t— He’s still my boss. I’m still following the— Seriously, what?”

“I just thought—”

“What? What did you—no, _why_ are you trying to see if I…” His stomach drops. In the words of another guy, he has a very bad feeling about this. Very quietly, almost choking around the lump in his throat, he says, “Is this a fucking honeypot?”

Jacobi doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

Eiffel shoves him off, hard. He starts to go back to their room before changing course and heading to the fitness room instead. It’s not like he’d be able to sleep now, not with the way his heart is racing and his hands are shaking.

He can’t tell who he’s more angry at: Kepler, who Eiffel really should have expected something like this from; Jacobi, who he should have expected to follow along with Kepler’s stupid bullshit games; or himself, for falling for it.

He picks himself, because there’s not really another option.

(What he doesn’t get is the why. Why would Kepler feel the need to test his loyalty, why now, and why like this? What did Eiffel do to... And why would Jacobi— No. He can’t. He really fucking can’t deal with them right now. He can’t fucking think about any of this right now.)

Here’s the worst fucking part of it all—he’s not sure if he passed or not.

He’s not sure if he cares.

(Of course he fucking cares. The only thing keeping him from barging into Kepler’s quarters is that it’s probably part of the test too.)

So. He compartmentalizes.

He can run on the treadmill until his legs give out and he doesn’t have the strength to hurt anyone else. And he can slip quietly back into his room and take the last open bed and pretend that no one else is awake and watching him.

Then he’ll go back to the Hephaestus and look for aliens.

He has a fucking job to do.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes some fucking talent to do his job while not speaking to two members of his team, if he does say so himself.

Kepler’s decided that they’re going to build a probe to get a better ranged signal which means the three of them—him, Maxwell, and He Who Shall Not Be Named—are stuck in a small room building a very delicate and complicated machine. And yeah, it’s probably not fair that he’s putting all of... _that_ on Jacobi, but he doesn’t have the option of not talking to Kepler.

Not that Kepler is going out of his way to talk to Eiffel. Which is… No. Still no. He’s not going to waste any more brain space on what he may or may not have done.

So he avoids Jacobi at all costs, finding excuses to leave the room when it’s just the two of them, and using Maxwell as a human shield as often as possible.

And God bless her. Maxwell doesn’t normally takes sides in this… shit, and if she does it’s usually Jacobi’s side. But he must have given her the rundown, or at least a wide enough picture that she’s coming to Eiffel’s defense pretty often, taking his side in petty arguments about who gets what bed or choosing wire colors for the receiver.

But they’re all professionals.

Eiffel compartmentalizes.

He’s still working on his and Hera’s “accurate location” theory, which is mostly a side project as the extra math would be too much of a strain on Hera’s brain, so if he wants to work on it he has to hole up in the observation deck with Dr. Evil and make him do the calculations. Which is not Eiffel’s idea of a fun time, but because there’s a nominal chance that Jacobi or Kepler would wander into the room he finds himself there more often than not during his limited free time, when he’s not hanging with Hera or working through his frustrations in the exercise room.

Besides, you can’t beat the view.

Eiffel knows he’s coming back from this mission with most of his cells microwaved, but floating there in front of the large window in the observation deck, it seems like it might be worth it. The red dwarf is seriously something to behold, and it makes him want to blast Bowie and kick back with some space shrooms, which, to his absolute dismay, no one had the foresight to grow.

(“Doc, you grew Audrey II up in here. You sure you’re not growing something a little more… fun in that greenhouse of yours?”

“Greenhouse, as you call it, is no longer mine. And at no point did I have any… biological psychedelic substances growing in it.”

“Wow. You can seriously suck the joy out of everything.”)

Maxwell finds him there one night, after Minkowski picked Hilbert up for a supervised shift in his lab, and throws a meal packet at him. He’s missed every attempt for a team meal since… the thing, choosing instead to hide out on the Hephaestus and steal from their rations. It has the extra benefit of making Minkowski make The Face at him. It’s an extraordinarily wonderful _I’m going to murder you at the first available opportunity_ face.

Tonight’s meal is Goddard’s attempt at freeze-dried spaghetti carbonara. It’s terrible.

“Kepler killed me before the mission,” says Maxwell, in lieu of a greeting. “I just saw the status.” Eiffel pauses mid-bite of soggy pasta and looks at her. She’s free floating with him, just in front of the window and looking out at the star, and he thinks about making a stupid comment about staring directly into the sun, but the window is tinted to protect their eyes.

“Huh,” he says, swallowing. “He didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“It’s just another one of his…”

“Yeah,” she says.

“But why—it doesn’t even make sense for this mission. We’re here officially… right?” He asks carefully, because Kepler said this all came down directly from Cutter, didn’t he? At the very least, he implied it. There were never too many eyes on SI-5 missions, and even fewer on Deep Space missions. Just Kepler and Cutter, as far as he knew. Maxwell doesn’t say anything else, or look at him, so he says, “The Hephaestus crew has been dead since we got the message.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see Kepler’s status?”

“Of course not.”

“He’s got to be alive, right? So aside from Kepler, we’re a sardine can of corpses.” It’s not a really comforting image. “What did Jacobi say?”

“That Kepler must have a good reason for doing it.”

“And the reason for not telling you?”

“Same answer.”

They float in silence for a bit while Eiffel chokes down his food. The news is not unsurprising, which is to say that Kepler is predictably unpredictable. But Maxwell is still staring out at the star, so he knows that this spooked her.

And now Eiffel wants to ask her a question—the question, really. But he can’t give voice to it. The answer is too terrifying a prospect.

Because here’s the thing about Doug Eiffel—he got stupid once. Recently.

(And _fell in love_ is inaccurate, a better descriptor of the “Hopelessly Devoted” sing-a-long that Jacobi’s still running, but there’s no better word for it, at least that he knows of. English is too limited. The verb is right.

He fell into it, whatever it is. Was. Is. He nearly drowned in it. He’s barely keeping his head above water. He’s like that creepy girl in The Ring that lives in the bottom of the well, and Kepler’s the well. Or Kepler’s the videotape that kills everyone, and he’s Naomi Watts, watching it even though she knows she shouldn’t. Anyway.)

Whatever it was, he pinned his life to Kepler. He signed up. He bought in.

(He said yes, yes and—)

But at the end of the day, for all his… Kepler-ness, he’s always come through for them. He’s the biggest pain in the ass in the entire galaxy, but even for all his mind-game bullshit, he always has his reasons. There is always a bigger picture.

Maxwell looks over at him and says, “Yeah,” like she knew what he was going to ask her, and the problem is he still doesn’t know what the question was. But the moment’s dead, and he’s not going to resurrect it. He’s not even going to think about it.

Just add it to the list of things he’s not thinking about.

\---

A day or so later, he keys in the code for the observation deck and it doesn’t work. Which is odd, because the door is only supposed to be locked from the inside.

Maxwell is going through Hera’s systems again, but it only takes him half a minute of playing with the door’s wires to brute force his way through, where inside he finds Captain Lovelace pointing a gun at Hilbert.

Ah.

“Hi,” he says, slipping into the room, and Lovelace’s eyes only dart over to him for a brief second before looking back at Hilbert. Her arms never waver. “How are we doing tonight?”

“Eiffel. You should leave.” He hovers by the door, watching them both. Hilbert doesn’t even have the courtesy to look scared that someone is pointing a gun at him, which can’t be doing him any favors.

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, Captain. You know that. But I’m happy to stay here and play Maury for you two kids. See if we can work out this _is he the father_ storyline.”

“This really doesn’t concern you.”

“Uh, I’m pretty sure the gun means it does concern me. Because I need Dr. Doolittle here to do the math on this here paper so I can figure out how to talk to the animals. Learn their languages. You know what I’m talking about.” Lovelace squints at him.

“I… honestly don’t.”

“I mean, Lovelace,” he says, pulling himself closer, “put the fucking gun down.”

“No way.”

“I get that you’re upset, but—”

“There’s nothing to get! He killed my crew, and now I’m going to kill him.”

“If I could just—”

“ _Shut up, Hilbert,_ ” he growls. Eiffel doesn’t have a gun on him because he’s an idiot. Right now he just needs to kill enough time for Hera’s sensors to come all the way back online so she can send in someone with a gun.

Except Jacobi still hasn’t managed to disable Lovelace’s deadwoman’s switch, so a gun would be kind of useless in this situation. Retroactive points to Eiffel. Negative points to Jacobi.

He’s made it all the way to Lovelace now, and she’s still keeping the gun on Hilbert but alternating where she’s looking, back and forth between him and her target, and Eiffel’s really trying not to startle her, keeping his palms open and carefully planning his next move, but behind him, Hilbert decides to make a break for the door.

“No!” Lovelace yells, swinging the gun around, and Eiffel says, “Hang on! _Hang on!_ ”

_BAM_

“Ah,” says Eiffel, and his hand goes to his stomach.

Here’s the thing about firing a gun in zero gravity: there’s no air resistance, which doesn’t make too much of a difference over short distances like these, but the recoil is tremendous, the force of the shot pushing back both the shooter and the shootee. Eiffel hits the wall with a soft _thump_ and doubles over as best as he can manage.

“I didn’t,” says Lovelace, somewhere off in the distance. “I didn’t—”

There’s blood floating in front of him, suspended, and Eiffel watches it bead, transfixed, before falling to his knees, which is weirdly impossible to do in zero gravity. He curls into a ball and starts to drift.

“Eiffel! God damnit, Eiffel—” Lovelace is at his side, holding onto his arm, and her eyes are wide with panic. He appreciates it.

“That’s uh,” he says, looking up at her. “That’s an ow, right there.”

“Hold on, you stupid piece of— Help!”

He doesn’t pass out. Not until they get him in the lab, strapped to the table, and the pain of whatever they’re doing to him sends him unconscious.

\---

He feels like he was hit by a truck. Was he hit by a truck?

Wait, no. There are no trucks in space.

...Asteroid then?

He was certainly hit by _something_. He feels like one solid bruise, and his body aches with every soft gulp of breath. He opens his eyes slowly, adjusting back to the low fluorescents, and spots Lovelace strapped into a chair next to his bed, half dozing off.

“Hi,” he croaks, and Lovelace jumps in her seat.

“Oh! Hey,” she says softly. “Hi. How are you?”

“Uh, everything hurts now. What was in that bullet?” Lovelace makes a series of complicated faces before settling on one that looks like guilt.

“Yeah, uh, turns out you were allergic to the synthetic blood, so you started, uh...”

“Dying?”

“Kinda. And Hilbert had to treat that, which made you bleed faster so. I. Universal donor.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

“I mean, you’re the one...” Eiffel tries to shake his head until he realizes how much it hurts.

“Don’t sweat it, Captain,” he manages. “Chicks dig a guy with scars.”

“Dudes too?” Lovelace asks, raising an eyebrow gesturing to the other side of the bed. Eiffel turns his head and sees Jacobi, fast asleep, and strapped into another chair. Huh.

“Huh,” he says out loud.

“At least one of the Wonder Twins has been there constantly. And Colonel Cranky himself stayed during the entire procedure.”

“How sweet,” he says dryly.

“It... actually was.” Eiffel closes his eyes for a second and sighs.

“So are we done with the guns now? Nobody here is trying to murder anyone. Except for you.”

“He killed my entire crew.”

“Yeah, and when we get back to Earth he’ll stand trial for all that shit.”

“No, he won’t.”

“No, probably not. But if he wasn’t around I wouldn’t be alive right now, so I’m partial to keeping him around for the time being.” He gently touches the wound over the blanket, and then winces because, right, gunshot wound. “The bullet’s not still inside me, right? I’m not one of those soldiers who keeps the bullet in my body to remind me of the good old days?” Lovelace shakes her head.

“No but… Hilbert said it damaged your liver, so you probably won’t be able to drink ever a— what? Why are you laughing?”

“Captain, I’m an alcoholic,” he says with a twisted smile. The laughter hurt, but god, the cosmic irony. “My liver looks like a piece of jerky. You probably did me a favor.”

“Well, that answers the question of why you reacted so badly to the synthetic blood.”

The door to the lab slides open and Minkowski peaks her head inside.

“Hi,” says Eiffel, and Minkowski scowls and pulls her head back out, closing the door behind her. “Bye,” he tells the door. “What’s her problem?” He looks over and Lovelace is still staring at the place Minkowski's head was just a second ago with an even more complicated look on her face. "Wait, is there a real answer? I thought she was just being her usual cheery self.” Lovelace shakes her head.

“No, I… Officer Vargas… when they were sick with Decima they were hemorrhaging. And I could have... But I was working on my shuttle, and they didn’t trust me, and I didn’t trust them. So I didn’t. And Vargas died. And Minkowski just learned that I could have saved them. So that’s her problem.”

“Yikes,” says Eiffel.

“Yeah.”

“Well… thanks. For saving me.”

“I did shoot you. Accidentally.”

“You still didn’t need to— I know we’re not your favorite people right now, and it would have been just as easy to let me die. So thanks.”

“...You’re welcome.”

\---

He dozes off for a little bit, and when he wakes up again Lovelace is gone but Jacobi’s awake and making frustrated faces at his tablet. Eiffel watches him for a second, nearly letting his eyes fall shut again before the other man looks up and notices him.

“Hey,” says Jacobi, letting go of the tablet and leaning forward in his chair. “Uh, welcome back.” Eiffel grunts, but Jacobi doesn’t seem to notice. “Great job endearing yourself to Captain Lovelace, by the way.”

“Yeah, I got myself shot super on purpose.” Jacobi drums his fingers on his knee. The chair is bolted far enough away from the bed as to leave room for, you know, a doctor/mad scientist, so Jacobi is at enough of a distance for it to seem like a metaphor. And Jacobi must notice it too because he unbuckles himself and floats over so he’s hovering just above Eiffel.

It’s probably a metaphor too, but Eiffel’s a little too tired at the moment to figure out what it is.

“Hey," Jacobi says, "I’m—“

“Don’t.”

“You don’t know what I was going to—”

“Jacobi,“ he says, and the longer Eiffel looks at him the more he nearly loses his train of thought for how much he wants to forgive him, to set aside his hurt and sooth Jacobi, to tell him it’s okay, and that it doesn’t matter anymore, that Jacobi’s martyred himself enough. Eiffel’s tired, and Jacobi— well, he looks guilty enough. But for what, Eiffel doesn’t know.

Still. He’s a breath away from absolution when Kepler rounds the corner, and the moment slurs as Jacobi straightens out in his presence and perks to attention. Eiffel looks around them both, at the wall. It’s a fascinating shade of off-white. One might even call it grey.

“Sir,” says Jacobi.

“Jacobi, give us the room,” says Kepler.

If Jacobi gives him any kind of look on the way out, Eiffel doesn’t see it. He hears the door close, and after another moment he finally tears himself away from the wall to look at Kepler. Kepler, who looks kind of tired, which is weird, because Kepler doesn’t get tired. The man normally has Superman levels of endurance, and showing any kind of weakness is, well, weak. But there’s a pallor to his skin that’s more than just the laboratory lights, and an extra wrinkle or two running across his forehead.

“Nice of you to join us, Eiffel,” says Kepler, with the same dry, chipper tone he’s put on for the entire mission. “You’ve been neglecting your duties.”

“Colonel,” he says, because he really doesn’t want to do this cutsey back and forth. He’s too fucking tired. Of all of it. “Are we even now?”

“Even?” Even like the tone of Kepler’s voice; even like the stripes on his uniform; even like the thin line of his lips and cut of his eyebrows, parallel and calm.

“Even, sir.”

“Over what?”

“Over— _I don’t know,_ Colonel, and that’s the problem. I don’t know what—” He cuts himself off, frustrated, and Kepler cracks a smile, or at least an imitation of one.

“Did you get yourself shot as a—”

“I didn’t get myself shot! I was just shot!”

“You went into a hostile situation without a weapon or backup—”

“There wasn’t time to—”

“Don’t interrupt me.” Kepler says, almost off the cuff, like Eiffel’s not even worth the energy to scold. And maybe he didn’t _get himself shot_ as everyone keeps implying, he’s not Jacobi with a fucking hard on for napalm and near death experiences, or even Maxwell with her blatant disregard for biological life, but— He doesn’t know what he’s doing here, anymore.

Here, space. Here, with Kepler. Here. At all.

“Do you trust me or not?” He asks, finally, as flatly as he can manage, but whatever Dr. Feel Good gave him has broken down his mediocre defenses and he can hear his own voice crack. “Because that’s— that seems to be an overall theme here, and I don’t— Just tell me what I did and I can try and fix it but. I’m here. I’m. Do you trust me? Do you?”

There’s a moment of brief, horrible silence.

Kepler pulls himself closer to the bed, and without taking his eyes off Eiffel, reaches across the pillow and runs his hand across Eiffel’s forehead, pushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead.

And just like that, the fear and confusion and humiliation from the past few days rush out of him like a leaky balloon. This thin sliver of Kepler’s humanity— Eiffel grips it like a buoy. Like it’s a life vest thrown from shore. It’s nothing, but it’s everything.

(Some whispered part of him thinks _that isn’t an answer,_ but he hushes it.)

Kepler doesn’t pull away. He just stays there, stroking Eiffel’s hair, running his blunt nails across his scalp, and Eiffel shudders under the touch, blinking up at the bemused softness on Kepler's face, hypnotized. It can’t be more than a minute, maybe a minute and a half, but eons pass with every pass of his hand, cool and solid.

And then he stops, and drags his hand down to squeeze Eiffel’s shoulder. Eiffel licks his lips, and Kepler watches him.

“Uh, thanks for making sure that Hilbert didn’t turn me into his new lab rat,” he says. Kepler blinks at him, then quirks a small smile and ducks his head.

(It’s enough.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [art](https://tanis-drawings-2point0.tumblr.com/post/174838561925/and-eiffel-lets-kepler-move-him-straighten) by @taniushka12


	4. Chapter 4

Maxwell takes one look at him and lets out a short, dejected huff of breath. She says, “You lost weight,” but what she means is “ _You’re an idiot._ ” A conversation follows through various facial twitches: wrinkled noses, raised eyebrows, rolled eyes, and curled lips.

_yes_

_why_

_why not_

_still_

_you’re still here, aren’t you_

_where else would we go_

Then a set of smiles, thin and resigned.

It’s happiness, or something like it. Neither of them knows any better.

“Ready?” He asks, unbuckling himself from the bed. Maxwell hands over the new uniform and he puts it on over his underclothes. His stitches are healing nicely, tiny knots surrounded by yellowing bruises. It’ll scar for sure, but he kinda likes it: a right of passage, or a mark of the passage of time. Some kind of souvenir to bring back from space.

They didn’t let him keep the bullet, which is bullshit.

The jumpsuit hangs loosely on his body—he did lose weight.

“We’re behind on the relay,” says Maxwell, leading the way back to the Urania.

“Uh,” says Eiffel. “Sorry?”

“Just keeping you in the loop.”

“Any other, you know, more interesting gossip?”

“Eiffel, you’re the interesting gossip.”

He wrinkles his nose. “Gross.”

\---

Life goes on. Wounds heal.

Eiffel turns 32.

He’s not 100% sure it counts, since birthdays are supposed to clock rotations around the Sun—not just any old star—but he supposes it’s good enough. Besides, they brought up some real food for Christmas, so getting to eating a piece of meat that wasn’t grown in a lab does wonders for everyone’s mood.

They get back to their duties and it’s like something it the universe righted itself, the four of them moving in synchronistic orbits around each other, working, living, and going about their days with a renewed energy.

The probe fails and they try again, and then it fails and they build another one. Eiffel builds his own probe and they launch that one too, but still, the universe stays silent aside from a few stray pieces of music. He wishes he knew their names by memory, but the rest of the crew fills in the blanks in his knowledge, Rossini, and Bach, and Camille Saint-Saëns. He and Hera pipe the music through the station for everyone to enjoy in his own Shawshank Redemption moment, closing his eyes and floating back in the communications room of the Hephaestus and letting the instrumentation wash over him.

He can’t name them—can’t tell a flute from piccolo or a viola from a violin—but he can appreciate the music all the same, even if he can’t understand the message or the emotions it’s supposed to bring.

More than anything, he wants to know what it means. 

So he starts talking more. Each time they get a message, he sends one right back, talking about life on the station and life on Earth, about movies, and music, and it doesn’t seem to make a difference in the number of communications he gets back but it’s almost soothing to talk into the void and have the void not talk back.

They’ve been on the Hephaestus for over 100 days, and the Hephaestus crew has been in space for almost two years, and Lovelace has been in space for almost five years, and it should be a problem that he doesn’t miss Earth, that if he doesn’t think about it too hard, there’s nothing to miss. His—and he’s still, after two years, not sure what to call them, monikers that seem too formal or too informal, too intimate or too off-putting. But his _people_ are here with him. In space.

He’s not really in a hurry to get back, if not for the monotony.

Honestly: it’s boring. Somehow, Goddard Futuristics managed to make outer space boring. And it’s not like they have a lot of down time, but the work itself is repetitive with miniscule results. Sometime in the last few years, Eiffel turned into a guy who wants to work, and that might be the weirdest thing of all.

It’s like Tom Petty said: the waiting _is_ the hardest part.

\---

And then, for some unholy reason, Cutter calls for the Hephaestus’ crew’s annual review.

Eiffel parks himself just outside of the comms room to watch them go in and out and panic, and eventually Maxwell and Jacobi join him because there’s not a lot that passes for entertainment on the station. There are a lot of concerned glances and harsh whispers, and Hera doesn’t say anything at all because it’s not like she can whisper, but because of the transmitter Eiffel set up when they first arrived, it’s not like they’re keeping any real secrets at this point.

Not that they know that.

Still, it’s cute to watch them try.

Cutter even makes them drag the doc out of his cell for a chat, and Hilbert comes out of the comms room looking more green-tinged than usual. Lovelace is the last to go, and before Minkowski, fidgety, can ask her how it went, she nods her head over at him.

“He wants to talk to Eiffel,” Lovelace says flatly.

“...What?” He asks, and Lovelace shrugs.

“I’m just the messenger.”

“Huh,” says Eiffel and just before he pushes away from the wall to go in Kepler, who had only wandered up in the last minute or so, sidesteps him and heads into the comms room first. Eiffel follows him in and shuts the door, just as Kepler is putting on the headset for the private receiver.

“Mr. Cutter,” Kepler says, ignoring Eiffel. “Yes, I know you wanted to talk to Eiffel, but I just— Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Of course not, sir.” After a beat, Kepler takes off the headset and stretches out his arm, beckoning him over. Eiffel ducks Kepler’s gaze and takes the receiver when it’s offered, trading places with Kepler in the room. Kepler doesn’t leave, just hovers stiffly a few feet away, physically and metaphorically, arms crossed.

“Hello?”

“Doug!” Cutter croons. “It’s so delightful to hear your voice. How are you? I heard about your nasty accident a few months back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, Doug. Is that all you have to say about it? You were shot!”

“Well, sir…” Eiffel clears his throat. “It hurt?” Cutter chuckles.

“See, that’s more of that classic Doug Eiffel humor we’re missing on Earth. Tell me: is Warren still in the room with you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you wouldn’t do anything as rude as putting me on speaker without telling me?”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Good. Well, I do plan on speaking to the others—as I reminded Warren, you are technically part of the Hephaestus crew while you continue your mission there, so there’s no reason not to include you in the review while I have the station on the line—so to speak. But Doug... I wanted to check in and get your perspective on how the mission is going so far.” Doug clears his throat again. He left his packet of water outside with the other snacks he rounded up while they watched the Hephaestus crew get grilled. He has to admit, it’s… less entertaining now.

“Well, sir, I’m. I’m not thrilled with the frequency of the transmissions, but we’re all working hard to—”

“Oh, not that part of the mission,” says Cutter. “I’m also… not thrilled, as you put it, about the current status, but Warren has kept me updated on everyone’s progress in his mission reports.”

Eiffel thinks, _oh he has, has he?_

“What I’m looking for,” Cutter continues, “Is more of an… hm… interpersonal report. How is everyone feeling? How well are the crews... intermingling? How is your team adjusting to their new roles?”

Eiffel says, “Uh.”

“Of course, I know it’s hard to speak frankly while your supervisor is standing over your shoulder, but please. Do your best.”

“Uh,” Eiffel says again. “Aside from the expected pressures—no pun intended—of space and the minor… weapons incident, I would say we’re doing as well as expected.” He can feel Kepler’s eyes and eyebrows on him, but he doesn’t dare turn around.

“Weapons incident?”

“My getting shot. Sir.”

“Of course. Please continue.”

“Frankly, sir, this is a challenging mission and I’m not sure we—Maxwell, Jacobi, and I—expected all of the stressors we would run into. But it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

“And Warren?”

“Sorry?”

“Is it something he can handle?”

(The word _it_ is... specific. _It_ means singular, but he doesn’t know if Cutter means the mission or a specific stressor or something that may or may not have been in one of Kepler’s mission reports.)

He still doesn’t look back at Kepler, can’t look back, and he wishes this was some old dial up phone with a cord he could twist and tangle while he tries to think of an answer that won’t get anyone killed.

“I don’t think we’d be doing this well without him,” Eiffel says finally, and he thinks he hears, behind him, the smallest change in breathing. “I can’t speak for the rest of the Hephaestus crew but this is— This is how we work best. And I believe we’re on track to fulfill mission parameters.”

And then he shuts up, for fear of saying anything else at all.

From millions of miles away Cutter says, “Thank you, Doug. I always appreciate your candor.” Then he says, “Please hand me back to Warren.”

Eiffel turns around and passes over the receiver. “It’s for you.”

Kepler is making a face that should probably be in a museum somewhere, studied by archeologists and sociologists and all different kinds of code breakers. He takes the receiver and doesn’t look away from Eiffel, just says “Sir,” and listens to whatever Cutter says at the other end of the line.

Eiffel’s the one who has to pull away, slipping back out the door until the other man finally disappears from view

“Well?” Maxwell demands. She and Jacobi are the last two waiting—the Hephaestus crew wandered away at some point, back to their stations or to continue panicking. Eiffel grabs his water and gulps down a few sips.

“It wasn’t quite ‘steal Kepler’s whiskey’ level, but it was close.”

“Are we next?”

He just nods and Jacobi buries his face into his hands.

\---

Later that day, Minkowski calls him into a storage closet with, “Hey Eiffel, can you give me a hand with this?” After he pulls himself inside, she closes the door behind him.

“Wow, Minkowski,” he grins, hand casually moving towards his sidearm. “I didn’t expect this kind of informality from you, but the heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Shut up,” she hisses. There’s no one else in the room and Minkowski isn’t holding or reaching for any kind of weapon, so Eiffel lets his arm relax slightly. “I’m not. That’s not.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s… Give me a second.”

“Okey dokey.”

“Stop it, Eiffel. Look. You’re—” She sets her jaw and tries to calm the glare she keeps projecting, to hide it under something softer and less threatening. “I want you to be completely honest with me. And I know that you have no reason to, but Hera trusts you, and Lovelace likes you, and from what I’ve seen… I just need you to tell me the truth about something. Can you do that?”

“Minkowski—”

“You’re the most human out of any of them. You remember what it’s like to not be— Here. So please, Eiffel. Tell me. If we’re good, and we make contact, and we do our jobs, is... Are we going to get to go home?”

“Yes.” He says it automatically, but it’s a lie, only because he doesn’t know. Not for sure.

The Hephaestus crew is a liability. Not just from the super secret alien knowledge, but for everything from the entire mission. Plus, there’s the whole “whoops we already faked killed you” thing, which he knows Goddard could reverse, if they really wanted to. Maybe as a way to buy their silence.

But.

That’s not the smart move.

He says, “We do this, do all of this, change the fucking world in the process, and we go home heroes.”

After a beat, Minkowski says, “Thank you,” and moves away from the door. Eiffel leaves with his back to her, even though every part of him is screaming to keep her in sight.

At the Urania, he finds Kepler in his quarters, half leaning against his bed and studying something on his tablet. Eiffel waits in the doorway for a second and then says, “I think they’re going to try something soon.”

Kepler hums and doesn’t look up.

“That should be fun.”


	5. Chapter 5

Well. It's decidedly  _not_ fun.

The Hephaestus crew showed a ruthlessness none of them were expecting, with multiple prongs of attack designed to put them out of commission so they could, as he predicted, steal the Urania and escape. Eiffel is honestly a little impressed by them. Minkowski has clearly taken his advice about teamwork and trust.

Still.

Their ragtag group of misfits had nothing on Kepler’s ragtag group of misfits.

At the end of round one Hilbert is dead, they have Lovelace tied up on the Urania, and Hera is missing part of her brain, (that last bit he does feel kinda bad about.) Minkowski has Maxwell, though Jacobi is on his way to pick her up and take care of Minkowski. Which means Eiffel should just follow instructions and head back to the Urania, right?

Right?

He pulls himself forward down the hallway and then pauses, letting the momentum drag him forward before his grip on the handle tugs him back. Eiffel floats there for a moment, suspended. He bites his lip. He takes a breath.

He says, “Hera?” Hera doesn’t respond. “Hera, will Minkowski do it?”

“I— I don’t know,” Hera says stiffly. “ _Sir_.”

“Okay,” Eiffel says, mostly to himself, and then he swings himself around to head to the bridge.

He doesn’t have a plan other than to help Jacobi rescue Maxwell. Maybe Kepler will get mad, or maybe he won’t, and maybe in a minute Eiffel will care about something like that, but at the moment the only thing he knows is that Maxwell is in more danger than they all thought. That Minkowski is more of a danger than they assumed.

He’s worried. Which is weird, because nobody else is worried. Over the comms Maxwell sounded bored. Kepler _laughed_ for fuck’s sake. No one else is worried that Minkowski might out manipulate, out stubborn, out maneuver Kepler. And he’s not sure that she can. But. Eiffel’s always been the cautious one, and he’s really hoping that this is something that they’ll make fun of him for later.

And yet. There’s a little voice inside him whispering, _and yet, and yet_ to every excuse he comes up with to turn around and head back to the Urania like he was supposed to. Every murmur is fuel for him to move a little bit faster, to get to the bridge before something happens. Before anything happens. Before.

He got some kind of weird ping in his chest when the Doc died, like he breathed too deeply with broken ribs, and it still hasn't gone away. It’s a twinge he can’t ignore, even now as he moves along the corridor. He didn’t especially like the guy, and Hilbert was actively trying to kill them all. But it’s still nagging him.

Even more so, the concept of it all, the fact that Eiffel is bothered by this guy’s death: that’s what’s bugging him. Because, well. He’s worked on this. The death thing. From the time he was eighteen, he’s worked on repressing any emotional response, any response at all, really, to all of that. Death. Killing. It’s his job—well, part of his job, anyway. And in the past two years, he's gotten really good at... Well, both things. The burying of emotions, and the crying of people.

He’s had no problem taking out a security guard coming after his team, or the rare spy trying to infiltrate Goddard Futuristics, or even (a building full of people, god he really doesn’t like to think about that building full of people, that was a good day; it wasn’t a good day but it was a good day before, and after, but that part in the middle—)

He moves a little bit faster.

(And there were more missions, more people, more us vs. them, Spy vs. Spy, stealing tech and secrets and trading bullets and letting the adrenaline of a job well done ( _Great job, Eiffel_ ) soothe any protests, an unearthed voice calling out _wait, wait, wait_ —

He has a job to do. He has an important job to do. (He does, doesn’t he? His job is important?) He has a job (a job Kepler gave him, Kepler gave him the job, this job, this job right here) a job to do he has a job to do (he doesn’t have a job he has a life he doesn’t have a job outside of the job, this is all he has, he has nothing else he has nothing else, he—)

He makes it to the bridge.

And in the brief second before anyone sees him, Eiffel sees exactly how it’s all about to play out.

Jacobi’s just in front of him, making his way into the room with his gun out, like somehow he can’t see the fury in Minkowski’s eyes, the desperation and cold of a woman with absolutely nothing left to lose. She’s going to see him, and as soon as she does she’s going to shoot Maxwell. And then Kepler will shoot Lovelace. And then Jacobi will shoot Minkowski, if she doesn’t get to him first. Five people dead in less than an hour, and without Maxwell, Hera’s barely a shell of what she really is.

And then... what? What the hell is left, after that?

Eiffel and Kepler stay up in space search for aliens?

(He has a job to do he has a job he is—)

In the brief second before anyone sees him, Eiffel knows exactly what will happen. And in the second that follows, he moves up behind Jacobi and puts his arm around his neck. And squeezes.

Jacobi squirms and Doug doesn’t say anything like _I’m sorry_ or _trust me_ , just holds tight on his windpipe, pins his arms and legs with the hard won skill the other man helped teach him, squeezes until Jacobi goes limp in his arms. He doesn’t think about the last time he held Jacobi, here circling Wolf 359, or the last time on Earth, with Kepler, or the time before that, or any other time he had Daniel pinned to his bed with words or a soft touch, gently tending to bruises Doug didn’t put there.

He wonders, just for a second, if he’s left a mark this time.

All eyes in the room are on him, two sets confused and furious.

“What the fuck did you do?” Maxwell screams, pulling at her restraints as Minkowski flicks her gun over at him before pointing it back at Maxwell. Eiffel ignores them both and starts to tie Jacobi’s arms together with the rope he unclipped from the other man’s belt.

“Lieutenant,” he says, checking the knots and pocketing Jacobi’s gun. “I’m here to negotiate.”

“Eiffel—”

“Prisoner transfer. Maxwell takes Jacobi out of the room, and I stay.”

“Eiffel, what the _fuck_ —”

“ _Shut up_ , Alana.” He doesn’t look at her, just keeps his eyes on Minkowski.

“Why?” Minkowski asks, voice tight and dark.

“Because no one else has to die today. And I’m trusting that you will make the right decision for your last two crew members. We have the numbers, and honestly, Kepler has the balls. Not that you don’t. You’d shoot us. But you don’t want to. I mean... you want to, yeah, but you don’t really want to.” He swallows. “Believe me. I know what that’s like. Let’s end this right here.”

Minkowski’s nostrils flare as she looks between him and Maxwell, and then she moves around the chair and tugs at Maxwell’s bindings until she’s able to wiggle loose, keeping the gun trained at her back.

“Maxwell, do it,” Minkowski says. Maxwell doesn’t move.

“Or what?” She sneers. “You’ll shoot me?”

“Alana,” he says, and he’s surprised at how steady his voice is. “Get him out of here.” With a final eye roll at Minkowski, Alana moves towards him and carefully grabs hold of Jacobi’s limp body. She turns to him to say something, to conspire, to maybe get some kind of clue that he knows what he’s doing, or that this is a direct order from Kepler, something solid to hold onto, but Doug turns away before she can catch his eye, arms raised above his head as he moves towards Minkowski.

He hears the door close behind them. Minkowski takes his gun and Jacobi’s gun, but doesn’t bother tying him up, just keeps her own gun steady at his head.

“So,” he starts to say, and Minkowski glares at him before hitting the button on the comms system.

“Kepler?”

“Minkowski. Are you ready to negotiate?”

“I have Eiffel.”

“You… have…”

“I made a call, Sir,” Doug interrupts, ignoring Minkowski's sneer.

“...Officer Eiffel?”

“Maxwell and Jacobi are on their way back to you. And now Minkowski and I are going to talk this through like adults so no one else has to die today and we can all get back to work.” When Kepler doesn’t respond he adds, “Colonel... think about the bigger picture.”

“Wow, your officers really are idiots.”

“Lovelace, shut the hell up,” Doug snaps.

“Am I… negotiating with you now, Eiffel?”

“Of course not,” says Minkowski,

“I mean she still has a gun to my head, but by all means. Sir, just… stay on the line.” Kepler hums, maybe in agreement and maybe not, but he doesn’t say anything else. Doug lets the dead air hang for a second before looking back at Minkowski and trying to keep his face as neutral as possible.

“Here’s the deal,” Doug says, doing his best to look past the gun and at Minkowski herself, holding eye contact as gently as he can. “Dr. Robotnik is dead, and although he stitched me up that one time I don’t think anyone here is too boo hoo over it. And even right now, I’m only about 60% sure you’d shoot me in the head, which, credit to you: you’ve been through a lot, and this whole fucking thing sucked for you, but you’re not a cold blooded killer. It still means something to you. You’re still human. But the Colonel? I’m 1,000% sure he’s going to kill Captain Lovelace if you don’t lower your weapon. And what happens then? Bang bang, and you’re left with Hera, who Maxwell already took out of the action. And then what? What’s step three?”

Minkowski hasn’t lowered her weapon, but for a second he sees it: a small waver, a tic in her cheek, and a tremble in her arm. He’s so fucking close to ending all of this bullshit.

Doug says, “No one else has to die today,” and at the hitch in Minkowski’s breath and the silence over the line he actually believes it.

“I—”

“I need you to lay down your weapon.”

“Him first.” Doug shakes his head.

“You know that’s not going to happen. I can’t even get him to agree to this until you do.”

“Colonel,” says Maxwell over the open channel, “what the hell is—”

“ _Quiet_ ,” Kepler growls.

Minkowski’s hands are shaking, but he doesn’t comment on it, just keeps looking at her. Her eyes are starting to well up so he keeps his own soft, keeps breathing steadily across the quiet until finally—

“Fine,” she says, clipped. “How?”

“Take all of the guns and put them in the locker by the main console. Out of reach from everyone.”

Minkowski deflates. Where just minutes before she wouldn’t take her eyes away from him, now it seems like she’s doing anything in her power not to look at him, just focusing on the task at hand. He doesn’t move as she stows the guns, not wanting to spook her. It’s only when the cabinet is locked that he can breathe again.

“Colonel?” Doug calls out, and his voice only wavers with relief for a second. “You still there? Minkowski and I—”

The station shudders. Minkowski keeps her balance but Doug is knocked from his seat and glides across the room. A sonic boom echoes from somewhere in the distance, and as he pulls himself to a stop in front of a window he gapes at the sight.

“Holy…” He whispers. “Uh, Minkowski? Anybody? Are we all seeing this?”

“Oh my god,” Minkowski whispers.

“Colonel? The star is—”

“Blue. I see that, Eiffel.”

“Great,” he says. “Wonderful. What the… Hera?”

“I'm—” Hera stutters. “I-I'm not sure what's happening. My sensors are indicating rapid fluctuation in the radiological spectrum. There's no reference point in my— SHOCKWAVE IMMINENT. BRACE FOR IMPACT.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with thanks to the actual writers for that last line of dialogue :)


	6. Chapter 6

The station shakes, violently, and he and Minkowski are tossed across the room as alarms start to wail and thunder. Emergency lights flash from every direction and electricity sparks out of the main control panels, threatening fire with every leap of smoke.

"Hera!" Minkowski shouts, and Eiffel loses his grip on the console and slips across the floor. “Get us—”

“Propulsion is online, but I can’t—”

“Shit!” Eiffel says. “Colonel?” He can't hear any response over the noise of the chaos, klaxons blaring.

Hera yells, “Secondary radiation wave! Brace for impact!” There’s nothing close by to grab onto, so Eiffel ducks his head and curls himself into a ball as he’s sent into the ceiling like a pinball, forehead bouncing against the slick paneling before he’s flung back again. He grabs a handhold on the way down and manages to pull himself upright. His ears ring and Minkowski shouts something at him, or at Hera, and a third wave of radiation hits. The station groans, internal structures bending to their limits.

“Hera!”

“Give me a second!” The shaking lulls to a low rumble, tremors quieting as the alarms continue to shriek. Eiffel pushes the noise to the back of his mind as best he can, catching his breath.

“Shit,” he says, rubbing his head. Minkowski is hunched over a nearby console, typing and muttering about hydrogen fluctuations. "You okay?" She nods, not looking up. Her ponytail loosened in the chaos and the elastic tie is threatening to slip off her head entirely, and she’s holding her left elbow close to her body. She must notice him looking because she scowls and mutters, “I’m fine.”

"Colonel,” Eiffel calls out, “everyone okay over there?" Kepler doesn't respond. “Hello?” The comms system buzzes, and Eiffel pulls himself over the panel to answer it, waving off the smoke. “Colonel?" But instead of Kepler, he’s met with a horrible screech of static interference, and he winces and turns it off.

“The radiation must be interfering with the system,” says Minkowski.

“Yeah, no shit,” he mutters, poking at the side of the panel. “Give me a second and I should be able to…”

“No.” When Eiffel turns around Minkowski’s pointing her gun at him again. “Step away from that console.”

“Oh, come on!”

“I mean it.”

“Like, forty seconds ago you were cool with this truce.”

“Plans change.”

“Yeah, no shit. I don’t know what the fuck is happening right now, but the red dwarf just went all Papa Smurf on us and I do know _that’s not supposed to happen_. Can we focus on getting this station back in a stable orbit before we go back to pointing weapons at each other?”

“Hera?”

The shaking calms into a subtler rumble.

“I think I’ve got it… for now,” Hera says. “But there’s no telling if or when we’re going to be hit with another dose of radiation that strong.”

“Great,” Minkowski sneers. “Now we can get back to pointing weapons at people.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eiffel mutters. A quick glance tells him that somehow she managed to unlock and relock the cabinet with the guns, so there’s no chance of him getting to a weapon. Not that he really wants to. Even with the weird shit happening outside the station—honestly, especially with the weird shit going on—he’s not giving up on plan ‘ _For fuck’s sake everyone stop shooting_ ,’ at least until they figure… “Did you say something?”

“What?”

Just out of range of his perception, it sounds like someone—maybe multiple someones—is whispering. It’s nothing he can make out, but he strains to understand it anyway, glancing around the room, before the sound fades away

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear— Eiffel, were you even listening to me?”

“No I— Yes. Mostly. I thought I heard…” _Someone else talking_ , is the end of that sentence, layers of soft whispering that didn’t originate in this room, not with the way Minkowski is glaring at him. He leans a little closer to the communication panel, thinking maybe the voices originated there, but there’s no sound. Not even static. “Must have hit my head harder than I thought,” he says, and Minkowski rolls her eyes.

“Hera,” she asks, keeping the gun pointed at him, “what’s going on over at the Urania?”

“I d-don’t know. I’m totally cut off.”

“Did Maxwell do something?”

“I can’t tell. Something might have shaken loose during the radiation.” Eiffel, palms up in what he hopes is a non-threatening gesture, waves his hands above his head.

“Now will you let me fix the comms system?” The panel buzzes again. “Clearly someone is on the other side trying to connect with us, which means they can’t reach us either. This isn’t some kind of evil plan, it’s just some kind of scientific anomaly, aka the very thing we were sent up here to investigate.”

“Yeah,” Minkowski growls, “great job _blowing up_ the station’s only red dwarf expert!”

“Hindsight, Minkowski! Hindsight! Plus, you all were trying to blow us up with the explosives from Lovelace’s shuttle, remember?” He drops his arms and laughs. “What kind of a plan was that, anyway? Separate us, blow us up, steal the Urania? And you think, somehow, that killing us still makes you better than us? Because you’re _the good guys_?” Minkowski’s face twists and Eiffel glances back at her gun. “ Come on, Lieutenant—”

“That’s _Commander_ Minkowski to you.”

“Look—”

“We tried it your way, Eiffel. And as soon as I dropped my guard, as soon as I started to think that just maybe you had some inkling of humanity that your psychopathic boss didn’t—”

“You really don’t know a goddamn thing about me, do you Minkowski? Do you think I’m some kind of puppet dancing at Kepler’s whims?”

Distantly, Hera says, “Guys…”

“Just because you tug at the leash sometimes doesn’t mean you’re not at his beck and call.”

“It’s called _trust_ Minkowski. You should try it sometime.”

“I did,” she spits. “I trusted you.”

“And have I done anything in the last five minutes to make you think that was a bad idea?” And there are the whispers again, muttering… something he can’t make out, something trying to distract him away from the woman and the gun in front of him. And yeah: them and every other instinct are telling him not to trust her, to duck out the door and get the fuck away.

But even scarier is what might be waiting for him on the other side of the station. What the hell is waiting for him at the Urania.

But also, gun. And whispers. And Minkowski. And—

His head hurts.

“Are you hearing that?” He demands, pushing the palms of his hand against his throbbing forehead. “Those— Jesus Christ I’m hearing voices. The star is going nuts and I’m hearing this whispery, ghostly voices, and I’m either going nuts or I’m already crazy. Before you shoot me, I’d just really like to know.”

“I…” Minkowski says, and for a second he sees her bite her lip. “I’m…”

“I think something going on,” Eiffel says, breathing quickly. “And because we currently live in a world with alien transmissions, I’m going to say that it has something to do with the star. Maybe the wacky radiation. Hera, please don’t correct my shitty science. I’m just trying to…” He sighs and leans back against the wall. “I could have let Jacobi take you out. You heard the Colonel. That wasn’t a pre-authorized move. That wasn’t part of some ridiculous scheme designed to fuck with you.” He doesn’t mention how many of their plans over the last few months were specifically designed to fuck with them, but that’s really not important right now. “I just want to figure out what’s going on. I’m not trying to get to a weapon. I’m not using Hera’s coding against you—”

“Hey!”

“—And yes, sorry Hera, that sucked, I know it did.”

“ _I’m not talking to you_ ,” she hisses, and Eiffel winces.

“Yeah, fair enough. But Minkowski… If we’re going to figure out what the hell is going on right now then we need to work together. Whatever is going on is new and dangerous and we can’t be distracted by... that other stuff. Live together or die alone. All that jazz.”

“Fine,” Minkowski says, clipping her gun back to her belt. “But we stay here. We don’t know what kind of shape the Urania is in, and the equipment in the Hephaestus has better chance of making sense of… whatever this is. And I’m not putting my gun away.”

“Not even if I say pretty please?” He asks dryly, and Minkowski ignores him.

\---

After about twenty minutes of staring at numbers and charts on screens (with intermittent breaks when the consoles start sparking and try to explode on them,) Hera says, “Uh oh” and Eiffel groans.

“Don’t say uh oh. There is no such thing as a good uh oh.”

“Hera?” Minkowski asks, looking up from her screen.

“The star’s emissions are all increasing at an… At an exponential rate.”

“Which means?”

“Somehow… the star is getting bigger.”

“That’s… not possible.”

“Science fiction physics aside…” Eiffel says. “That’s bad... right?”

“An increase in mass means an increase in gravity. We’re losing ground. I can keep adjusting our course for now, but eventually…”

“The star is going to eat us?”

“...Yeah.”

“Okay. Okay, okay, okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’m thinking! We either need to lighten the load or boost power, so—”

“The Urania,” Minkowski says, and Eiffel points at her.

“Yes!!”

“Will it work?” He turns back to his monitor and starts to type out rough calculations.

“Well, the ship is on the wrong fucking side, so first we’ll have to spin the Hephaestus which will take up fuel, time, and ground. And even if that part works, we might accidentally snap the station in half.”

“Do we have another option?”

“Not that I can think of. But we need Kepler to pull this off.” Minkowski glares at him. “Oh don’t give me that look, the Urania is bio-keyed to him. What was your plan when you were trying to steal it?”

“...We didn’t know about that part.”

Eiffel blinks. “I am… not going to comment.”

“Good call.”

“But: will you let me go see what’s taking the others so long? If the comms still aren’t working...” He flicks them on and lets it screech horribly at them for a second before shutting it back off. “Then somebody needs to go find them. And I’m thinking they’ll react better to seeing me.”

“So I’m just supposed to stay here?”

“You’re the navigator. We need to know exactly how to pull this Cirque du Soleil move off with the smallest possibility of dying.” Minkowski wrinkles her nose and taps the console.

“Fine,” she says, for what seems like the one hundredth time this hour, every fine releasing a little bit more of the tension in his shoulders, each agreement to go against everything and try to trust one another is a win the size of a rapidly expanding blue dwarf star. “Hera will keep an eye on you until you get to the Urania. Try and figure out why she’s locked out, okay?”

“Aye aye,” he salutes, and then leaves before Minkowski can throw anything at him (like a bullet.)

Eiffel pulls himself down the hall in near silence, clocking station damage as he goes and pointing out the more immediate dangers to Hera. It’s only been a few hours since this whole thing started, but they caught him just coming off rotation so Eiffel’s going on about a full cycle without sleep. It’s not the longest he’s managed in the field—the Calgary incident still takes the cake there—but it feels like he’s swimming through Jell-O, each movement more sluggish than the last.

“I really am sorry,” he says, and Hera doesn’t respond.

He’s just over halfway to the Urania when he spots Jacobi at the end of the hallway, and he’s a little embarrassed at the relief of finding the man in one piece.

“Hey, where the hell have you guys been?” He asks as he pulls himself closer. Jacobi doesn’t respond, just glances over Eiffel with a tired and tense look. His sidearm is out but not raised, gripped in both hands and resting at his side. “Yeah,” says Eiffel, flicking his eyes to Jacobi’s throat. His suit is zipped all the way to the top, and Eiffel’s probably only projecting that he can see a flash of red and purple underneath the collar. “Okay, fine, you’re mad about the whole… choking thing. I’m sorry, okay? Except, I don’t know, my plan worked and none of us are dead, so.”

“Colonel,” Jacobi calls over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off Eiffel. “I have… one of them.”

“One of— _The fuck_ , Jacobi? I didn’t switch sides or anything. What the hell is going on?” Jacobi raises his gun, and Eiffel flinches.

“Hands on your head.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathes. Kepler and Maxwell round the corner, their own weapons drawn. “Hey!” Eiffel yells as they approach. “I am really, _really_ fucking done with people pointing guns at me today!” Maxwell’s face is tight, her lips pinched, and he can tell that she’s chewing at the inside of her cheek. Kepler is all business, eyes neutral and focused.

“Sir,” Jacobi says, “is there any way to tell?”

“Not while they’re alive.”

“Oh my god,” Eiffel says, starting to back away. “ _Oh my god_. Can someone tell me what the _fuck_ —”

Jacobi lunges forward and pins Eiffel’s arms to his sides, and if it weren’t for the last minute of conversation he’d call this petty revenge for earlier. But it’s not. Not this level of professionalism, this mostly contained emotion. Twisting out of the hold with a flash of adrenaline, he elbows Jacobi in the nose and winces when he hears the cartilage snap. He pushes off Jacobi and, bracing himself, slams his hand against the comms panel on the nearest wall.

The hallway fills with screams of static and Eiffel uses the distraction to get the _fuck_ out of there, pulling himself into the nearest room and locking the door behind him.

“Hera!” He whisper-shrieks, trying his best to contain his panic attack. “ _Hera_! My crew has gone cuckoo bananas and are possibly trying to kill me!”

“Wow,” says Hera. “That sounds rough.” Eiffel smacks his hands over his face.

“Yeah, okay, we suck _I get it,_ but if they’re willing to kill me, then do you think Minkowski is going to be any safer?”

“...Oh.”

“Yeah, oh! No shit, oh! Comms are still down so you need to— I don’t know, can you reach her?” Someone bangs on the door from the outside, and Eiffel flinches and yells, “ _Don’t you dare say ‘Here’s Johnny!_ ’” The banging continues, and he can’t hear anything else, no one talking or plotting about whatever the fuck is going on, and he thinks that maybe this is it, this is how it’s all going to go down, some B-movie space madness, and what’s worse is that even if he manages to get away they’re all going to die an even stupider death by getting sucked into the star because Eiffel’s, what, gotten pulled into Invasion of The Body Snatchers? Or some other dopplegänger movie he can’t remember right now because he’s too busy focusing on the impending, horrible death.

And then Minkowski kicks in the vent.

He only screams a little.

“Come on!” She hisses, and it takes a second before he crouches down and pulls himself in after her.

“Were you following me?” He asks as she secures the gate behind them. There’s not a lot of room, just enough for him to elbow his way further into the vent. A few feet in it splits into four directions, and he puts himself into the one across from Minkowski, leaving two different paths in front of them. “Not that I— I mean, thanks, I guess.” For saving me from my own crew, he doesn’t add, closing his eyes.

“We need to get to the Urania and save Lovelace,” she says, and he makes a noise, some kind of half-assed protest. “Eiffel.”

“I… Yeah. Okay. Do you know how to…” Minkowski starts crawling down one of the open paths and Eiffel sighs and starts to follow her, dragging himself along on his forearms. “Okay then. The vents don’t go directly into the Urania, do they?”

“Of course not.”

“Come on, I just learned that this Mission Impossible setup existed. Who am I to know if you guys have been sneaking around like this the whole time?”

“There’s an opening just a few feet away from the connection point. Will you be able to get us in?”

“Assuming they haven’t gone 100% crazy and took away my access, yeah.” There’s just enough space for Minkowski to look back with a glare. “What? We didn’t expect the plan to include my star-crazy teammates!”

“ _I did._ ”

“Well congrats, you win the paranoia game. But there’s nothing we can do until we get there.” Minkowski turns back around and keeps moving, but he can hear her eyes roll.

They’re alone when they slip into the Urania, but even though his passwords work the odds that the ship sent an alert to Kepler is higher than he’d like so he moves them quickly to the armory. When he keys the room open the first thing that hits him is the smell, gunpowder and the bitter, adrenaline sweat of confusion.

Isabel Lovelace sits strapped to a chair in the middle of the room with a bullet in her head.

Minkowski gags and gasps, reaching out to her in an unconscious half step, and Eiffel’s sick with it, anger swelling even as he sweeps the room with a practiced calm. Minkowski’s hand reaches for her gun, and at this point he can’t even blame her.

The ship rocks with another wave of radiation, and Eiffel only spots them closing in behind them out of the corner of his eye. He thinks, _okay, yeah._

It’s been a day of split second decisions.

In an unearned burst of energy, he disarms Minkowski and shoots the lock, sealing the room in time for a bullet to ricochet off the door.


	7. Chapter 7

“Officer Eiffel,” Kepler asks, “what are you doing?”

“Stalling.”

“I see.” Kepler tilts his head and then says, just as casually, “Jacobi, get the door.”

“On it. Sir.”

The Urania’s armory sits on of the stern of the ship, near the back engine, a smallish room lined with long, squat windows at just the right height to give the appearance of privacy if you were sitting down. If you could ignore the sleek white walls and the weapons hidden beneath them, it had been a nice room to have quiet minute in, to sit and do reports without anyone watching. Now, Eiffel floats just high enough to stay eye level with Kepler, following him around the windows as Jacobi starts to pull wires out of the outside panel. Both his and Kepler’s guns are raised but not pointed at anything in particular, muzzles loose and off center. He can’t see Maxwell.

Behind him, Minkowski is tense and backed against the wall, as far away from him and Lovelace’s body as she can manage. He’s not looking at her, not offering any kind of reassurance. They don’t have the time for that. She’ll snap back into the action in a second, find one of those exciting hidden weapons and point it somewhere. He hopes it’s not at him.

“Now that I have your attention,” Eiffel says, eyes darting between Kepler’s easy gaze and the few glimpses of Jacobi he can see—a shoulder, the top of his head—and now he’s lost his train of thought because the weight of his actions has finally caught up to him, Eiffel’s hindbrain finally telling the rest of his body what it’s gotten up to. You can’t plant your feet and hold your ground in low G, you can’t find your balance (they way Kepler showed him, murmuring _Adjust your feet_ with a too close, too warm shift of hips, fingers firm and molding him and—)

And Kepler’s looking at him like he knows what he’s thinking about, Kepler’s smiling at him like he know exactly where Eiffel’s brain is at, two instincts warring between his ears, ( _I can’t/wait/wait/wait/wait—_ )

And his throat is filled with moss when he says, “We’re in a degrading orbit into the star. And no matter what the fuck is going on right now, I can’t imagine this is something you’re interested in. So how about you use the Urania to pull us out of harm’s way before we deal with... whatever the hell this is?”

Kepler says, “I didn’t expect this kind of mutiny from you.”

“Mutiny? This isn’t a mutiny!”

“What would you call it?”

“Self defense? From when your team and friends pull guns on you for no fucking reason?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Yeah? _Yeah?_ ” He’s near hysterics, shaking with rage and hurt and he needs to focus, needs to watch Jacobi and the door but Kepler’s just on the other side of that glass, with that same _get with the program_ look he always gives when Eiffel’s not where he wants him to be, one part disappointment, two parts cocktease, one hundred fucking percent bastard. He wants the door to open so he can tear open Kepler’s throat with his fingernails. He wants to solve this Sphinx riddle, finish the maze like the pathetic rat he is and get his fucking piece of cheese.

His heart is racing when he says, “Is this about the truce?”

“You disobeyed direct orders.”

“Yeah, but I had it. I had a different way and you— You didn’t need to kill Lovelace. I had it under control. But that was the problem right? It was out of your control, you egotistical— Oh, god. Oh, shit.” He doesn’t let himself close his eyes, but god it all makes sense now. “This whole time, the whole damn time we’ve been up here, you. And now.  Before we left, it. We. Christ, Has this been about... the whole time?”

“Eiffel,” Kepler says, “I can honestly say I have no goddamn idea what you’re talking about.” Eiffel laughs, a short exhausted giggle.

“Yeah. Of course you fucking don’t.”

Maxwell slips into view and spares him a brief look through the glass, brow furrowed, before turning back to Kepler.

“I finished sweeping the Hephaestus, and Colonel— They’re the only versions of themselves walking around.” Kepler nods and cracks his neck with an audible pop.

“That’s good to know. Now then: Eiffel, how about you turn your gun on Minkowski and I’ll catch you up on what you missed?”

“What? No! _Sir_ ,” he begs, a last, pathetic attempt at reason, “I am _this_ fucking close to pulling a real mutiny and taking command of this mission. Except it wouldn’t be a real mutiny because I’m pretty sure Cutter warned me about your space crazy, so I think I’d have his support.”

“So what’s stopping you?” Kepler asks, and Eiffel looks away, breaks eye contact with a flush of shame. “Jacobi?”

“Almost got it.” Minkowski’s at his side now, silent but for her breathing and the leverage of a very large gun. He spares her a glance and a half nod. She returns the gesture.

Kepler says, “Eiffel, feel like lowering your weapon now?”

He doesn’t get a chance to answer. There’s a snap and a sharp hiss, and Eiffel follows the sound to a vent outside their locked room.

They’re in an open hallway but there’s nowhere to go, and in seconds they’ve collapsed into unconsciousness.

A figure drops out of the ceiling in a gas mask with a muffled, “Hey, kids.”

Eiffel’s eyes snap first to the body in the chair, still and lifeless, before he traces the voice to just outside the room. The gas disperses and the figure disappears for a moment behind the wall before the door slides open and Isabel Lovelace steps through.

“I re-rerouted the last halothane gas containers. Payback’s a bitch, huh?” She says, dropping the gas mask. “You alright, Commander?”

“What— You.”

“Yeah,” says Lovelace. “Me. I know this is… But I need you to hold it together. Eiffel, please give Minkowski back her firearm.” Minkowski looks down at the gun in her hands.

“I actually like this one.”

“That one’s a little explody,” Eiffel says, clicking on the safety and dropping the weapon anyway. It floats next to him as he drags his hands across his face. “Try the one on the far wall. It’s a little more… I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re looking for.” He sighs. “Cuffs are over there too.

He holds himself steady while Minkowski and Lovelace handcuff the rest of his team, and as soon as they’re secure he lets go and puts his head between his knees. There’s no way to slide down a wall and to let the world shift beneath you metaphorically when there’s no ground at all, and he wants to crawl out of his fucking skin, away from what’s running through it, and god Kepler knew, didn’t he, knew as soon as they got on board, knew what would happen when the star turned, knew what she was when he let her—

“Eiffel,” Lovelace says, nudging him with her boot. “Come on. We need to start the sequence.”

“I am having,” he mumbles slowly and through his legs, “an existential meltdown.”

Lovelace crouches down next to him, drags his head up with a firm grip on his hair, and forces him to make eye contact, face contorted with barely controlled rage and fear as she hisses, “ _Get. In. Line._ ”

“Okay,” is the only thing he manages to squeak out. Lovelace pulls away and he stands up, mentally burying everything from the past… Wow, he’s really lost track of time here. Whatever. He buries the last thirty years, just to be sure. After collecting his breath he adds, “Put another set of cuffs on Jacobi.” Minkowski blinks.

“Really?”

“Yes.” He pauses, then says, “Don’t ask me how I know that.”

“I... wasn’t going to. Do you have a brig on this ship?” Eiffel shakes his head.

“Nothing great, but we can probably rig something. There’s always the Observation Deck on the Hephaestus. Either way, we should split them up.”

“No shit.”

“What about Hera?” Lovelace asks. “We can try and reconnect her with the Urania, but right now Maxwell’s backdoor coding will override anything she tries to do.”

“Eiffel, can you fix it?”

“I barely understand the theory.”

“Shit,” Minkowski huffs. “So we keep her disconnected for now. We can’t risk them using her like that again.”

“Duct tape,” says Eiffel, and they both look at him. “At least for transit. And I can shut down communications to whatever room they’re in.”

“Okay,” say Minkowski, “let’s move them before anyone wakes up.”

“Hold on,” he says, and the two women glare at him. “I promise I’m putting all of my shit on the backburner for right now, but. We’re all here, right?”

“Right.”

“And Hilbert wasn’t…” He winces, looking at Lovelace. “Whatever…”

“He came with us from Earth.”

“Great. Great. Then… who’s still calling?”

As if on cue, the comms panel buzzes in the background.

Minkowski closes her eyes and says, “One thing at a time.”

\---

“Hey. Wake up.” It takes a second before Kepler’s eyes flutter open, and if it weren’t for the slight tells—checking the tightness of the cuffs, the twinge in his face where Eiffel ripped of the duct tape, a careful look around the room—he might wonder how long Kepler’s actually been awake. They’re in one of the Urania’s storerooms, in the underside of the ship, and free of any technology minus the security cameras. There’s hard lock disconnecting it from the rest of the Urania, and, assuming the worst, the room automatically vents to space if the security system senses any tampering.

One day, he thinks, as he watches Kepler collect himself, far in the future, he will have to thank Rachel Young.

“Eiffel,” says Kepler.

“I need you to tell me your command code.”

“You know,” he drawls, “this isn’t how I thought our time together would end.”

“Your code, Kepler. We already have your bio-key but I still need your command code so we all don’t die. So if you would just listen to me instead of—”

“No, _you_ listen to me Eiffel. You do not have the upper hand here. I know you, and I know your fatal flaw. You. Care. You won’t let Jacobi or Maxwell get hurt, and you need me to operate this ship.”

Doug punches him in the face.

It’s off balance but he catches Kepler just under the eye, bruising his knuckles against his cheekbone. When Kepler looks up there’s mirth and surprise dancing in his eyes. Doug lets his nostrils flare as he rubs his sore fingers, wiggling his hand.

“Yeah,” he says with a short sigh. “That’s true. I don’t want to hurt either of them. But neither do you. You’re not as detached as you make yourself seem. You’re jealous, petty, and a selfish bastard with a sadistic streak. And even with evidence to the contrary, you’re a pretty smart guy. Minkowski and Lovelace won’t kill you straight out, even though you did, well, shoot one of them in the head. Because they’re better than that. But they’re also stubborn enough to let us all fall into the star before they’d give you back control. So we’re at an impasse. Me on the other hand…” He flexes his fingers again. “I’m not really sure where I land. It’s been a strange day. I’m still deciding.

“And then there’s you,” he says again. “You’re a control freak, but you’re arrogant, and that’s what got you into this whole mess. But you don’t want to die. Not yet.” Eiffel leans forward, and says, breath hot on Kepler’s face, “If you die, you can’t get your revenge. If you die, you don’t get to know what’s going to happen when I finally answer that hail. You’re too damn curious. You want to know what happens next.”

Kepler’s face twists into a cruel facsimile of a smile.

“ICARUS,” he says, and Eiffel’s heart starts to beat again.

“Commander, did you get that?”

“Loud and clear,” says Minkowski. “Everyone—hold onto something.”

Kepler’s chained to the wall by his wrists, and maybe it’s just to reassure himself that he can’t break out, but one of Doug’s hands makes its way there, twisting his fingers around Kepler’s as the Urania spins them against the orbit, fighting her way through the star’s gravitational pull. The seam between the ship and the Hephaestus creaks violently, echoing a groan through the speaker. He grits out a loud, “ _Minkowski_ ” and ignores the tightening grip on his hand. And then there’s a moment of silence, a terrifying stillness before they’re jolted again, the engines working overtime to guide the Hephaestus away.

And over the din he lets Kepler drag him forward, his sharp mouth against Eiffel’s ear.

“I know your new friends are listening because they don’t completely trust you yet, but that’s because they don’t know you like I do. They don’t _own_ you like I do.

“You think I betrayed you, but more than Maxwell, more than _Daniel_ , you always knew who I was. I got you out of jail, and I saved your miserable excuse of a life and made you better. Cutter was planning to send you up here to be Hilbert’s sacrificial lamb but I saw something he didn’t. I wanted you for my team because I knew you were better than that. I made you better. And I was right. I was _right_.” He grazes Eiffel’s neck and laughs when Eiffel jerks away, stumbling back as the station slows.

As he nears the door Kepler says, “Well done, Doug,” and he has to leave, slam the door behind him before he dissolves against the wall, grinding his forehead into the cool tile and the heel of his palm into the skin where Kepler marked him, tamping down the way his heart is jumping in his throat and the steady echo further down. And it’s all he can do not to shove another hand into his jumpsuit, that _Well done, Doug_ a direct shot of dopamine, making him flush with blood that isn’t his. And he lived, sure, but Kepler killed him too, and it took Doug too many years to start worrying about that, to decide his life was—

( _Mr. Eiffel, fight for your life._ )

—Shit, that was him too, wasn’t it? Even if it was his before, Kepler’s the one that dragged it out, that instinctual, animal desire to live, to fight back, and god, there it is, there’s the irony of it all, of how it all backfired.

Because Kepler’s the one locked up, and Doug’s. Well.

He’s here.

\---

He heads to the bridge on the Hephaestus and finds them gathered around the main console, poking at the burned out pieces. They barely look up when he pulls himself inside, hovering on the periphery of their huddle until Minkowski turns back and gestures him forward. She looks like she’s in rough shape, but he’s sure he doesn’t look any better. It’s been a long day.

“We’re good?”

Hera says, “We’re in a safe orbit around the star, which thankfully doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger.” She sounds just as tired as the rest of them.

“Did the Urania hold up?”

“Mostly. The main engine is damaged but I can repair it,” says Lovelace. “I built a shuttle out of spare parts. I can do much better with this.”

The comms panel buzzes and Doug startles and opens his eyes, not even remembering closing them.

“Commander?” He asks, and Minkowski shakes her head.

“You’re the communications officer.” He looks at Lovelace, and Lovelace looks back.

“Ugh, fine,” Doug says, wincing at the static as he opens the line and starts to clear up the channel. He feels Minkowski and Lovelace gather at his sides, tight behind his shoulders, and maybe it’s because they still don’t totally trust him, or maybe it’s anticipation of what’s going to happen next, but he lets their presence soothe him anyway. He holds this moment, just for a breath, away from everything that led them there.

(He's here, he's—)

“This is Douglas Eiffel aboard the U.S.S. Hephaestus Station…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for coming on the journey with me! There will be an epilogue forthcoming...

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @lesbianjackrackham


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